From the University of Chicago
Satellite reveals surprising cosmic ‘weather’ at edge of solar system
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The first solar system energetic particle maps show an unexpected landmark occurring at the outer edge of the solar wind bubble surrounding the solar system. Scientists published these maps, based mostly on data collected from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer satellite, in the Oct. 15 issue of Science Express, the advance online version of the journal Science.
“Nature is full of surprises, and IBEX has been lucky to discover one of those surprises,” said Priscilla Frisch, a senior scientist in astronomy & astrophysics at the University of Chicago. “The sky maps are dominated by a giant ribbon of energetic neutral atoms extending throughout the sky in an arc that is 300 degrees long.” Energetic neutral atoms form when hot solar wind ions (charged particles) steal electrons from cool interstellar neutral atoms.
IBEX was launched Oct. 19, 2008, to produce the first all-sky maps of the heliosphere, which reaches far beyond the solar system’s most distant planets. Extending more than 100 times farther than the distance from Earth to the sun, the heliosphere marks the region of outer space subjected to the sun’s particle emissions.
The new maps show how high-speed cosmic particle streams collide and mix at the edge of the heliosphere, said Frisch, who co-authored three of a set of IBEX articles appearing in this week’s Science Express. The outgoing solar wind blows at 900,000 miles an hour, crashing into a 60,000-mile-an-hour “breeze” of incoming interstellar gas.
Revealed in the IBEX data, but not predicted in the theoretical heliosphere simulations of three different research groups, was the ribbon itself, formed where the direction of the interstellar magnetic field draping over the heliosphere is perpendicular to the viewpoint of the sun.
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  IMAGE: Priscilla Frisch, Senior Scientist in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and member of the science team, Interstellar Boundary Explorer. Collaborating with former UChicago astronomer Thomas F. Adams, she made the first spectrum… |
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Energetic protons create forces as they move through the magnetic field, and when the protons are bathed in interstellar neutrals, they produce energetic neutral atoms. “We’re still trying to understand this unexpected structure, and we believe that the interstellar magnetic forces are associated with the enhanced ENA production at the ribbon,” Frisch said.
IBEX shows that energetic neutral atoms are produced toward the north pole of the ecliptic (the plane traced by the orbit of the planets around the sun), as well as toward the heliosphere tail pointed toward the constellations of Taurus and Orion. “The particle energies change between the poles and tail, but surprisingly not in the ribbon compared to adjacent locations,” Frisch said.
IBEX is the latest in NASA’s series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers space missions. Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, leads and developed the mission with a team of national and international partners. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorers Program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Citations: N. A. Schwadron, M. Bzowski, G. B. Crew, M. Gruntman, H. Fahr, H. Fichtner, P. C. Frisch, H. O. Funsten, S. Fuselier, J. Heerikhuisen, V. Izmodenov, H. Kucharek, M. Lee, G. Livadiotis, D. J. McComas, E. Moebius, T. Moore, J. Mukherjee, N.V. Pogorelov, C. Prested, D. Reisenfeld, E. Roelof, G.P. Zank, “Comparison of Interstellar Boundary Explorer Observations with 3-D Global Heliospheric Models,” Science Express, Oct. 15, 2009.
H.O. Funsten, F. Allegrini, G.B. Crew, R. DeMajistre, P.C. Frisch, S.A. Fuselier, M. Gruntman, P. Janzen, D.J. McComas, E. Möbius, B. Randol, D.B. Reisenfeld, E.C. Roelof, N.A. Schwadron, “Structures and Spectral Variations of the Outer Heliosphere in IBEX Energetic Neutral Atom Maps,” Science Express, Oct. 15, 2009.
D.J. McComas, F. Allegrini1, P. Bochsler, M. Bzowski, E.R. Christian, G.B.Crew, R. DeMajistre, H. Fahr, H. Fichtner, P.C. Frisch, H.O. Funsten, S. A. Fuselier, G. Gloeckler, M. Gruntman, J. Heerikhuisen, V. Izmodenov, P.J anzen, P. Knappenberger, S. Krimigis, H. Kucharek, M. Lee, G. Livadiotis, S. Livi, R.J. MacDowall, D. Mitchell, E. Möbius, T. Moore, N.V. Pogorelov, D. Reisenfeld, E. Roelof, L. Saul, N.A. Schwadron, P.W. Valek, R. Vanderspek, P. Wurz, G.P. Zank, “Global Observations of the Interstellar Interaction from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer-IBEX”, Science Express, Oct. 15, 2009.
Related links:
Animation shows how energetic neutral atoms are made in the heliosheath when hot solar wind protons grab an electron from a cold interstellar gas atom. The ENAs can then easily travel back into the solar system, where some are collected by IBEX. Credit: NASA/GSFC http://www.swri.org/temp/ibexscience/DM/SP_draft1.mov
Solar Journey: The Significant of Our Galactic Environment for the Heliosphere and Earth, Priscilla C. Frisch, editor. http://www.springer.com/astronomy/practical+astronomy/book/978-1-4020-4397-0
IBEX Web page at Southwest Research Institute http://ibex.swri.edu/
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ibex/index.html
To view a video related to this research, please visit http://astro.uchicago.edu/%7Efrisch/soljourn/Hanson/AstroBioScene7Sound.mov
Here is another press release on IBEX from Boston University:
IBEX discovers that galactic magnetic fields may control the boundaries of our solar system
NASA mission reveals impact of galaxy’s magnetic fields
(Boston) – The first all-sky maps developed by NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, the initial mission to examine the global interactions occurring at the edge of the solar system, suggest that the galactic magnetic fields had a far greater impact on Earth’s history than previously conceived, and the future of our planet and others may depend, in part, on how the galactic magnetic fields change with time.
“The IBEX results are truly remarkable, with emissions not resembling any of the current theories or models of this never-before-seen region,” says Dr. David J. McComas, IBEX principal investigator and assistant vice president of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. “We expected to see small, gradual spatial variations at the interstellar boundary, some 10 billion miles away. However, IBEX is showing us a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky.”
A “solar wind” of charged particles continuously travels at supersonic speeds away from the Sun in all directions. This solar wind inflates a giant bubble in interstellar space called the heliosphere — the region of space dominated by the Sun’s influence in which the Earth and other planets reside. As the solar wind travels outward, it sweeps up newly formed “pickup ions,” which arise from the ionization of neutral particles drifting in from interstellar space. IBEX measures energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) traveling at speeds of roughly half a million to two and a half million miles per hour. These ENAs are produced from the solar wind and pick-up ions in the boundary region between the heliosphere and the local interstellar medium.
The IBEX mission just completed the first global maps of these protective layers called the heliosphere through a new technique that uses neutral atoms like light to image the interactions between electrically charged and neutral atoms at the distant reaches of our Sun’s influence, far beyond the most distant planets. It is here that the solar wind, which continually emanates from the Sun at millions of miles per hour, slams into the magnetized medium of charged particles, atoms and dust that pervades the galaxy and is diverted around the system. The interaction between the solar wind and the medium of our galaxy creates a complex host of interactions, which has long fascinated scientists, and is thought to shield the majority of harmful galactic radiation that reaches Earth and fills the solar system.
“The magnetic fields of our galaxy may change the protective layers of our solar system that regulate the entry of galactic radiation, which affects Earth and poses hazards to astronauts,” says Nathan Schwadron of Boston University’s Center for Space Physics and the lead for the IBEX Science Operations Center at BU.
Each six months, the IBEX mission, which was launched on October 18, 2008, completes its global maps of the heliosphere. The first IBEX maps are strikingly different than any of the predictions, which are now forcing scientists to reconsider their basic assumptions of how the heliosphere is created.
“The most striking feature is the ribbon that appears to be controlled by the magnetic field of our galaxy,” says Schwadron.
Although scientists knew that their models would be tested by the IBEX measurements, the existence of the ribbon is “remarkable” says Geoffrey Crew, a Research Scientist at MIT and the Software Design Lead for IBEX. “It suggests that the galactic magnetic fields are much stronger and exert far greater stresses on the heliosphere than we previously believed.”
The discovery has scientists thinking carefully about how different the heliosphere could be than they expected.
“It was really surprising that the models did not generate features at all like the ribbon we observed,” says Christina Prested, a BU graduate student working on IBEX. “Understanding the ribbon in detail will require new insights into the inner workings of the interactions at the edge of our Sun’s influence in the galaxy.”
Adds Schwadron,”Any changes to our understanding of the heliosphere will also affect how we understand the astrospheres that surround other stars. The harmful radiation that leaks into the solar system from the heliosphere is present throughout the galaxy and the existence of astrospheres may be important for understanding the habitability of planets surrounding other stars.”
IBEX is the latest in NASA’s series of low-cost, rapidly developed Small Explorers space missions. Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, leads and developed the mission with a team of national and international partners. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the Explorers Program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The Center for Space Physics at Boston University carries out a wide variety of research in space physics including: space plasma physics, magnetospheric physics, ionospheric physics, atmospheric physics, and planetary and cometary atmospheric studies.
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Adolfo Giurfa (08:48:20) :
It seems that there are two currents, one going out and the other coming in. Is this so?
No, not really. The current in the HCS is a ‘drift’ current due to particles drifting in opposite directions on either side of the magnetic field change. Another drift current is the Ring Current around the Earth. It also does not have a closing current in the usual sense.
Leif Svalgaard (09:45:31) : What I meant it was a outward “wind” and an incoming “wind”. Though some think the Sun as being an anode and out there a cathode.
Leif Svalgaard (11:54:25) :
Ron de Haan (14:12:59) :
Why is this important? Well, for starters, it resolves the matter of missing neutrinos; the Sun puts out far fewer neutrinos than theory suggests
Manuel’s ‘theory’ is pure nonsense. And there is no neutrino problem. The Sun puts out precisely what theory predicts. With detectors that were only sensitive to electron neutrinos we only saw 1/3 the neutrinos expected. With modern detectors we see all three types and the flux is just as expected. The resolution of the ‘problem’ is that neutrinos change their ‘flavor’ [of which there are there – hence the 1/3] in flight. There is no problem.
Oliver K. Manuel (20:01:38) :
The intriguing “ribbon” or “belt” at the interstellar boundary is the outer edge of the Solar System in the equatorial plane.
An axial supernova explosion of the Sun gave birth to the solar system [Transactions Missouri Academy Sciences 9, 104-122 (1975); Nature 262, 28-32 (1976); Science 195, 208-209 (1977); Robert Welch Foundation Conference on Chemical Research XII. Cosmochemistry, pp 263-272 (1978); Nature 277, 615-620 (1979); Meteoritics 15, 117-138 (1980)] – just like the axial explosion of SN1987A.
That is why the ribbon or belt exists only be in the equatorial plane, not in the polar region where material was ejected much further from the Sun.
That is also why comets from the supernova explosion have elongated elliptical orbits in the equatorial plane about the Sun but are not in polar orbits.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel”
Leif, as you can see, Oliver K. Manuel is posting on this blog.
Would it not be practical if comments are exchanged on a 1:1 basis?
In same vein…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8311000/8311373.stm
Cosmic pattern to UK tree growth
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
The growth of British trees appears to follow a cosmic pattern, with trees growing faster when high levels of cosmic radiation arrive from space.
Researchers made the discovery studying how growth rings of spruce trees have varied over the past half a century.
As yet, they cannot explain the pattern, but variation in cosmic rays impacted tree growth more than changes in temperature or precipitation.(…)
“The correlation between growth and cosmic rays was moderately high, but the correlation with the climatological variables was barely visible,” Ms Dengel told the BBC.
(…)
Ron de Haan (10:23:47) :
Leif, as you can see, Oliver K. Manuel is posting on this blog.
Would it not be practical if comments are exchanged on a 1:1 basis?
We have been there before with Manuel. My comment was directed at you, because you were posting a false claim [that there is a neutrino problem]. So it was to set you straight. Manuel is a lost cause.
Adolfo Giurfa (10:10:51) :
What I meant it was a outward “wind” and an incoming “wind”. Though some think the Sun as being an anode and out there a cathode.
They are wrong. There is no incoming ‘wind’.
lucklucky (10:27:02) :
As William Shakespear said: ” The problem it is not in the stars…” but in the EU 🙂
Dr. Svalgaard presents solrey’s comment: “Mr. Svalgaard, I think you forgot one important detail, that detail is “pressure from a hot population of charged particles…”
Dr. Svalgaard responds: “There is a misconception here [and an important one]. The ISM and the solar wind are both electrically neutral, as is a plasma in general. The pressure has nothing to do with the electrical properties of the medium. It comes from the gas bing hot. The same process takes place around the Earth where the pressure of the particles in the solar wind is balancing the pressure of the Earth’s magnetic field.”
Dr. Svalgaard’s idea has been demonstrated as false:
The helio current sheet is part of the solar wind, the most dynamic, therefore, most important part of the solar wind.
The reason it is referred to as the helio “current” sheet is that a stream of charged particles flows out in an electrically charged current. In astrophysics, when a “current” is referred to, the “electric” is implied. I have received specific acknowledgment of this construction from other astrophysicists.
Dr.Svalgaard is in a minority in astrophysical circles, led by Eugene N. Parker that are stuck in the 1960’s ideas of “hot gas” and “kinetics” as the proper physical model, which current in situ satellite probe observations & measurements have invalidated as outdated, except for a minority dedicated to an “electric neutral” view of space dynamics.
The ISM, interstellar magnetic field, is not simply constituted of “hot gas” and “kinetics”, but rather charged particles in motion, it’s the charged particles in motion which cause the magnetic fields. Magnetic fields are dissipated by “hot gas” and random “kinetics”, the same way that a bar magnet loses it’s magnetic attractive force if heated to high temperatures. So, reliance on “hot gas” and random “kinetics” (“hot gas” is in essence in radom “kinetic motion) is antithetical to magnetic fields and certainly isn’t the cause of magnetic fields, rather, ordered motion, consistent with electric current, explains interstellar magnetic fields.
Dr. Svalgaard presents the statement: “NASA: ‘Moreover, electric current causes magnetic fields (see Electromagnetism)…’ Galactic magnetic fields are caused by galactic electric currents.”
Dr. Svalgaard responds: “In general, it takes an electric current to create a magnetic field is ordinary life [and that was what NASA’s piece was about].
In cosmic plasmas the magnetic field is the cause of the currents in material moving relative to the magnetic field.”
No, NASA’s piece was not limited to “ordinary life” (as if special, “new” physics applies only to space), it was foundational explanation of how electromagnetism works, both on the Earth’s surface and in space (there was no distinction made in the NASA webpage) — afterall, the whole website is dedicated to explaining space dynamics (a little detail that Dr. Svalgaard ignores).
This is an inconvenient truth that Dr. Svalgaard can not get around. Per Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism electric current and magnetic fields are two sides of the same coin, except that charged particles not in motion will still have an electric field, but will NOT have a magnetic field. It is the motion of the charged particles that generates the magnetic fields.
Dr. Svalgaard presents solrey’s question: “I’m curious about your thoughts on the spherical shape of the heliosphere, which prompted the declaration, ‘These images have revolutionized what we thought we knew for the past 50 years.’.”
To which Dr. Svalgaard responds: “There is the usual NASA hype here. The shape of the heliosphere is determined by the pressure balance between the ISM and the solar wind and the solar wind moves 20 times faster than the relative speed of the Sun and the ISM, so will be the determining factor, so one would not expect a long comet-like tail.”
This statement ignores and contradicts Dr. Svalgaard’s own prior statement in this thread where he presented a comment: “Welcome to the Plasma Universe.”
And Dr. Svalgaard responded: “Another piece of nonsense. The galactic magnetic field interacts with the plasma of the heliopause and the resulting electric currents deforms the heliosphere, just like for the Earth’s magnetosphere.”
To highlight: “…just like for the Earth’s magnetosphere.”
Readers of this website know that the Earth’s magnetosphere is shaped like a “tear drop” or a “comet”, in other words, a very elongated cone with a long “tail”, it is even referred to as the magnetotail.
So when Dr. Svalgaard states, “…just like for the Earth’s magnetosphere,” the reader knows what he meant. Of course, this parrotted the researchers on the Cassini and IBEX in situ satellite probe projects, who stated the “comet” model is what they expected to find, but the model was wrong, and instead they observed & measured a “spherical shape of the heliosphere,” which “revolutionized what we thought we knew for the past 50 years”.
Again, of course, Dr. Svalgaard made his comment, “just like for the Earth’s magnetosphere” before he knew that the researchers were reporting the “spherical shape of the heliosphere”.
Once this fact was pointed out to him, and he became aware of this fact, Dr. Svalgaard tailored his subsequent comment, in perfect 20/20 hindsight, to match the “revolutionary” observations and measurements to suggest he knew it all along, when in fact his prior statement makes it quite clear that he didn’t.
And, it was not NASA “hype”. All the researchers from the projects were saying the same thing and being consistent about the significance of the observation & measurement.
Rather, Dr. Svalgaard’s personal revisionism is in line with his general posture on this website: Namely, that the science hasn’t changed and that the astrophysical fraternity knows all the dynamics of the Sun and the solar system, and by implication, deep-space as well.
It’s clear they do not and Dr. Svalgaard should acknowledge this.
Svalgaard writes:
“The resolution of the ‘problem’ is that neutrinos change their ‘flavor’ [of which there are there – hence the 1/3] in flight. There is no problem.”
MGmirkin responds:
Groovy, any proof for your conjecture? Has anyone set up a neutrino observatory at the sun to measure neutrino flux there and shown that emissions at the source are different flavors than the flavors at the receiver? Until you do that, it’s merest conjecture and the problem still remains. Fanciful imaginings aside.
You can’t tell in Portland, Oregon what boxcars were attached to a train or what those boxcars may have contained in New York, New York when it started simply by inspecting them in Portland. For all you know, the train may have stopped in multiple cities (Chicago, Boise), changing boxcars or emptying and reloading with different contents. Or, it may have made a non-stop trip with no changes whatsoever. The only way to know the original distribution of boxcars and contents is to sample them at each stop along the way.
Simply hand-wavingly claiming to KNOW that neutrinos changed flavor en route is a bit of a cop-out and really needs to be backed up with confirmatory observations. Or admit that it’s merely a working hypothesis and not set-in-stone fact.
Svalgaard writes:
“In cosmic plasmas the magnetic field is the cause of the currents in material moving relative to the magnetic field.”
And how do we know that this only works in one direction in space? That is to say, why cannot an electric potential generate a current which generates the observed magnetic fields? IE, why is space “special”? Should not laws that work on Earth also work in space? And things shown to be true in the lab also be true in space? Just saying.
For instance, the fact that discharges in low density gases (AKA, plasma) are not “ideal.” That is to say plasma is not an ideal conductor (AKA, a super-conductor), it has non-zero valued resistance. As such, unbalanced charges do not instantly neutralize, electric fields can and do exist within a plasma and magnetic fields cannot be “frozen-in” to plasma.
This is quite easy to deduce from the Voltage versus Current graphs of plasma discharge regimes available from glow-discharge.com -> Physical Background -> Glow Discharges -> Discharge Regimes.
At no place on the graphs is V ever 0 valued (other than at origin where no current flows). It is always positive when current does flow. Ergo V / I (Voltage over Current; that is to say: the Resistance R [in the form R = (V/I)]) is never zero-valued.
As such, magnetic fields are not “frozen-in” to plasma, or “carried along with it.” They require currents and those currents, I assume generally require a voltage potential (that is to say, an electric field; implying charges can be non-trivially separated between differing regions of a plasma).
So, I guess I’ll repeat the question: does the relation only work one way (magnetic fields induce electric currents), or can both processes coexist in space plasma as they do in the lab (including electric fields / potential drops inducing electric currents, which in turn generate the magnetic fields we often see in space)? Seems sensible enough to me.
Svalgaard writes:
“The ISM and the solar wind are both electrically neutral, as is a plasma in general.”
Ehh, I think that’s incorrect, actually. It’s only ‘quasi-neutral’ “as is plasma in general.” That is to say that it contains approximately equal proportions of ions and dissociated electrons.
It is not composed entirely of ‘neutral’ atoms (bound nuclei with a corresponding number of bound electrons), however. Seems like a moot point, but methinks not. Unlike many TRULY neutral materials, plasma is a quite good conductor of ye olde electric currents due to the mobility of its charge carriers protons, +ions and electrons. Granted it’s low-density so charge and current density would also be low. But still. Again, just saying, it’s ‘quasi-neutral,’ not completely ‘neutral’ (AKA, solid / gas phase bound atoms).
And due to critical velocity effects, plasma will sometime ionize previously neutral materials turning them into … plasma. Go figure.
And, again, quasi-neutrality does not mean non-conductive.
As, in a glow discharge, the “positive column” tends to be ‘quasi-neutral’ (appx equal +ions and electrons), however the weak electric field in that region does cause a drift of charged particles, superimposed on their random thermal motions.
May not be 100% germane to the discussion (slightly tangential), but some useful tidbits nonetheless.
Svalgaard writes:
“one would not expect a long comet-like tail.”
Umm, then why was every EXPECTING the heliosphere to be comet shaped? And why is everyone thus so flustered that Cassini seems to have also shown this NOT to be the case? See the Science Daily article entitled: Cassini Helps Redraw Shape Of Solar System. From the article: “It’s amazing how a single new observation can change an entire concept that most scientists had taken as true for nearly fifty years.” Their statements seem to belie your contention that one would not expect a comet shaped heliosphere. Apparently they DID, and their surprised exclamations confirm it.
Svalgaard writes:
“The HCS is thus a purely local phenomenon: there is no large-scale heliospheric electric current system keeping everything neatly organized.” & “They are wrong. There is no incoming ‘wind’.”
And yet…
Wikipedia writes:
“The electric current in the heliospheric current sheet is directed radially inward, the circuit being closed by outward currents aligned with the Sun’s magnetic field in the solar polar regions.”
So, which way floweth the wind(s), and/or currents? Outward (“solar wind”)? Inward (heliospheric current sheet)? Are the WPedians following the motions of protons (conventional current) or electrons (electron current) when specifying the “direction” of the HCS (convention says the motion of protons should be considered, though I seem to recall Alfvén may have followed the motion of electrons in a few of his diagrams)? Keeping in mind that in an electric field, opposite charges will feel an accelerating force in opposite directions. That is to say one species of charges will feel an accelerating force applied in the direction of the anode and the opposite species in the direction of the cathode. Which species actually converts that accelerating force to motion depends perhaps on the materials (metal, electrolyte, plasma, etc.)
And it does seem they say that the HCS “closes,” that is to say, there’s a current equatorially and polarly, and one assumes they do close with one another, not unlike Afvén’s diagram (from “Double Layers in Astrophysics”) describing a unipolar inductor analogy for galaxies (and, considering the similarity in structure, potentially for the solar system as well).
plasma-universe.com/index.php/Image:Galactic-inductor.jpg
Best,
~MG
James F. Evans (14:03:36) :
It’s clear they do not and Dr. Svalgaard should acknowledge this.
Almost everything in your post is wrong, so it is hard to comment specifically [and won’t have any effect anyway]. Perhaps, on small thing: “The reason it is referred to as the helio “current” sheet is that a stream of charged particles flows out in an electrically charged current.”
I was one of the discoverers of the HCS, so may be permitted to comment on it. The direction of the current changes every 11 years. This happens because the current is generated by solar wind particles gyrating about the magnetic field, and since the magnetic field in the heliosphere switches polarity every 11 years [at solar maximum], the drift current switches direction too. Near solar maximum, the HCS looks like (c) in http://www.leif.org/research/HCS3.png which is a North-South cut through the heliosphere.
But, your whole post is so far off that one can only lament the state of scientific literacy among some segments of the public.
Dr. Leif Svalgaard:
No.
My post is right on the mark — you are part of a minority view point in solar astrophysics that maintains “hot gasses” and “kinetics” and “pressure gradients” drive solar system dynamics.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, this “hot gas” and “kinetics” model was overwhelmingly dominate in solar system astrophysics, but as in situ satellite probes were launched and observations & meaurements were made, evidence began to build that revealed the “hot gas”, “kinetics” model was inadequate to explain the forces in the solar system. The model was not a accurate representation of the physical reality.
This process has only accelerated to the point that nearly every additional in situ satellite probe discovery confirms the dynamic presence of electromagnetic forces within the solar system, several have been reported this year alone, the reports highlighted in the instant post are only the latest.
This is why NASA has devoted a whole series connected resource webpages where electromagnetism is a highlighted process in the solar system:
http://stargazers.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources/sun_earth_background.htm
So, while there are die-hards that maintain 1960’s model, you being one of them, that “hot gas”, “kinetic” model has slipped from the dominate majority view (perhaps “monolithic” view is more an accurate term) to being primarily a rear-guard action of a set rump ideas that are no longer actively demonstrated in the in situ satellite probe’s observations & measurements.
Astrophysicists are openly acknowledging a solar system where electromagnetic processes are significant and meaningful to understanding the dynamics of the solar system.
The “surprise” is that it’s growing to be less of a surprise when in situ satellite probes record observations & measurements that reflect electromagnetic processes of one kind or another.
This change over is the triumph of observation & measurement over theory.
I will add your personal revisionism speaks for itself and readers can inspect on their own and draw the appropriate conclusions.
Michael Gmirkin (14:40:48) :
Groovy, any proof for your conjecture? Has anyone set up a neutrino observatory at the sun to measure neutrino flux there and shown that emissions at the source are different flavors than the flavors at the receiver? Until you do that, it’s merest conjecture and the problem still remains. Fanciful imaginings aside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_neutrino_problem has more on this. We also have observations of neutrino oscillations from nuclear power stations, so we are near to the sources. This is not conjecture.
And how do we know that this only works in one direction in space? That is to say, why cannot an electric potential generate a current which generates the observed magnetic fields
Of course it can, and it does. It is just that there are no electric fields in the rest frame of a highly conducting plasma, as they are immediately shorted out.
And, again, quasi-neutrality does not mean non-conductive.
Cosmical plasmas are to a good approximation just protons and electrons in equal numbers and are thus neutral, but are very good conductors.
Their statements seem to belie your contention that one would not expect a comet shaped heliosphere. Apparently they DID, and their surprised exclamations confirm it.
The shape of the heliosphere depends on the balance of two forces: the outward pressure of the solar wind and the inward pressure of the interstellar medium and the ram-pressure of the ISM as we move through it. The solar wind flows at 400 km/s, the ISM at 30 km/s, so much less and its pressure is thus much smaller than the solar wind pressure. What’s new is that the ISM is hotter than we thought, so its inward pressure is larger. This tends to render the contribution from the sun’s movement through the ISM much smaller, and thus not conducive for a ‘comet’-tail configuration.
Wikipedia writes:
“The electric current in the heliospheric current sheet is directed radially inward, the circuit being closed by outward currents aligned with the Sun’s magnetic field in the solar polar regions.”
Well, Wikipedia is just wrong on this. The current reverses direction every 11 years and there is no polar current. Even if one believes [wrongly] that the magnetic field in the heliosphere is caused by the HCS, then since the HMF reserves sign at every solar maximum, the current in the HCS would have to reverse as well.
James F. Evans (18:22:28) :
Astrophysicists are openly acknowledging a solar system where electromagnetic processes are significant and meaningful to understanding the dynamics of the solar system.
show me a single one…
Now, you have carefully used the weasel word ‘electromagnetic’ which covers both situations. What we have learned is that the magnetic field as moved around by the neutral plasma is the shaper of things and drives the electric currents [e.g. in flares and magnetic storms] that are responsible for the various effects we see. Also, the word ‘dynamics’ is misused. The dynamics of the solar system has to do with the orbits and electromagnetism has [almost] nothing to do with that.
The plasma/electric universe cult has things precisely backwards. But humor me and the folks and find for us some astrophysicists that are cult members, e.g. from IBEX team.
Oh Leify…you gotta lotta ‘splainin’ to do.
From Wiki:
Nowhere in the Wiki entry does it mention the name “Svalgaard” or “Leif. Also, the list of published papers on Leif’s own website begins with:
First published paper:
Post graduate work, I presume.
Three years after the published discovery of the HCS from 1965.
Second published paper:
Do any of those first two papers even mention the HCS?
Care to give a citation, backing the voracity of your announcement of being a pioneer in the discovery of the HCS?
BTW, the same Wiki entry correlates magnetic fields with electric current.
On the same entry, we discover the inward directed electric current of the HCS:
Ever hear of “counter-flowing electrons”?
You also stated that the heliosphere was analogous to the Earth’s magnetosphere, which is elongated/teardrop shaped, yet the data indicate that the heliosphere is in fact spherical. You invoked mechanical gas dynamics to explain the spherical form, yet that is the basis of the same theory that has been proven incorrect, in regards to the elongated/teardrop shape, and the “belt/ribbon”…at least.
I now believe you are beyond disingenuous and view your credibility as less than nil, unless you can prove the voracity of your claim regarding the discovery of the Heliospheric Current Sheet.
The proof is in the puddin’, “Doctor” Svalgaard.
peace
Amused, but becoming more confused.
Michael Gmirkin (14:40:48) :
And how do we know that this only works in one direction in space? That is to say, why cannot an electric potential generate a current which generates the observed magnetic fields
Leif Svalgaard (19:12:59) :
Of course it can, and it does. It is just that there are no electric fields in the rest frame of a highly conducting plasma, as they are immediately shorted out.
Shorted out Leif???
Have you seen/read the Cassini aticles? Or have you seen the little animation of the heliosphere and overlaid galactic magnetic field? They depict a field flow and was wondering if the direction was accurate in its relation to the heliospheres direction?
Animation link.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12310
Regarding the spherical heliosphere:
“Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA/ASI mission”
Cassini is the probe that collected the data indicating a spherical heliosphere.
Is the Southwest Research Institute a department within NASA, or is it an independent organization in cooperation with? I’m sure ESA is independent of NASA.
Is NASA coordinating the “hype” among the various space organizations?
What say you, Mr. Svalgaard?
Never mind. My bad.
🙂
REPLY: Long comments (such as yours) often end up in the spam filter due to the likelihood that some word or phrase combination will trigger it. As I say to readers, if your post disappears, don’t immediately assume a nefarious motive. Patience works best. – Anthony
Thanks, Anthony. That’s why I phrased it as a question, rather than an accusation. I don’t sense any nefarious intentions from you at all.
peace
solrey (19:31:40) :
“The heliospheric current sheet was discovered by John M. Wilcox and Norman F. Ness, who published their finding in 1965
Wilcox and Ness discovered what was called the ‘sector structure’ back in 1965. They did not know at that time that there was a HCS. Today we know [see e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/A%20View%20of%20Solar%20Magnetic%20Fields,%20the%20Solar%20Corona,%20and%20the%20Solar%20Wind%20in%20Three%20Dimensions.pdf ] that there is only ‘one’ sector boundary, namely the HCS. Wilcox and I produced the first sketch of what the HCS looked like [Figure 6 in paper above] in our paper in Nature in 1976. The HCS was only realized from then on.
In http://www.oma.be/BIRA-IASB/Scientific/Topics/SpacePhysics/Outreach.html you can read: “The solar magnetic sector structure and associated warped heliospheric current sheet discovered by Wilcox and Svalgaard are first described.”.
The whole concept of the HCS become generally accepted around 1976.
On the same entry, we discover the inward directed electric current of the HCS:
Well, as I said, the wiki is wrong. The current reverses direction every 11 years.
Carla (19:53:38) :
Shorted out Leif???
Yes. Imagine you have a bunch of protons in one place and a bunch of electrons in another place. There would be a strong electric field between the two places and the protons and the electrons would attract each other with a force 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times greater than gravity. In a dilute cosmic plasma there would be virtually no resistance to the flow of the particles [which is a current] and they would VERY quickly find each other and short out the current flow.
solrey (19:31:40) :
Perhaps this will be useful too:
http://books.google.be/books?id=wxHN9jP-mNMC&pg=PA414&dq=heliospheric+current+sheet+svalgaard+stix&ei=NzXdSqW9Hp_4lASoyN2YAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false
solrey (20:02:45) :
NASA’s Cassini is the probe that collected the data indicating a spherical heliosphere.
The Cassini press release actually said:
“As the solar wind flows from the sun, it carves out a bubble in the interstellar medium. Models of the boundary region between the heliosphere and interstellar medium have been based on the assumption that the relative flow of the interstellar medium and its collision with the solar wind dominate the interaction. This would create a foreshortened “nose” in the direction of the solar system’s motion, and an elongated “tail” in the opposite direction.
The Ion and Neutral Camera images suggest that the solar wind’s interaction with the interstellar medium is instead more significantly controlled by particle pressure and magnetic field energy density.
“The map we’ve created from the images suggests that pressure from a hot population of charged particles and interaction with the interstellar medium’s magnetic field strongly influence the shape of the heliosphere,” says Don Mitchell, Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument/Ion and Neutral Camera co-investigator at the Applied Physics Lab. ”
In interpreting this you have to look at the pressure balance. There is the solar wind outward pressure. That alone would create a spherical bubble. If there is a strong interstellar ‘wind’ that would deform the bubble into a ‘comet’, but the solar wind moves at 400 km/s and the interstellar ‘cross wind’ only at 30 km/s, so the deformation is slight. Now, there is a third element of the pressure balance: if there is a hot gas surrounding the bubble that hot gas would exert inwards pressure on the bubble from all sided tended to make it more round. And this is what we have discovered. That does not mean that everything we thought was wrong. People could and did theorize as above 30 years ago. What we didn’t know was how hot the medium was, but with that knowledge, the spherical bubble is no surprise.
Whenever NASA or anybody else uses words like ‘breakthrough’, ‘revolutionize’, ‘overthrow’, etc, it is hype in my book. What we really have is yet another piece of the puzzle.
solrey (20:02:45) :
NASA’s Cassini is the probe that collected the data indicating a spherical heliosphere.
Just to point out that the spherical heliosphere was one of the models under consideration a decade ago [and was in fact first proposed by Leverett Davis in 1955]:
The Outer Heliosphere
Authors: Axford, W. I.; Suess, S. T.
From the Sun: Auroras Magnetic Storms, Solar Flares, Cosmic Rays, p. 143, Publication Date: 01/1998
Abstract
In explaining and describing the forces that shape the bubble of solar wind surrounding the Sun, there is a dearth of information. But observations from space are alleviating this situation. Three spacecraft moving away from the Sun-Pioneer 10 and Voyagers 1 and 2-are expected to penetrate the boundaries of the heliosphere within the next few years. All three spacecraft first passed close to Jupiter, and now their extended missions have become explorations of the outer heliosphere. The boundaries of the heliosphere are a standing “termination shock” in the solar wind surrounding the Sun and the “heliopause,” dividing the solar wind from the local interstellar medium. Uncertainties about the size and shape of these boundaries make it difficult to estimate exactly the time when the spacecraft will pass them. The termination shock may be nearly spherical or highly elongated, depending on how fast the local interstellar medium is flowing past the heliosphere. Pioneer 10, traveling downstream from the oncoming interstellar wind, may reach the termination shock first if, in fact, the shock is spherical. If the shock is elongated, having a larger dimension in the downstream direction, then Voyagers 1 and 2, traveling upstream, will encounter the shock first. Once these two spacecraft reach the termination shock, they will then pass through a region of solar wind plasma that has been heated by the shock. After a few years, they will pass the heliopause and go into the interstellar medium.
—–
We now know.
solrey (19:31:40) :
Here is our Nature article:
Nature 262, 766-768 (26 August 1976) | doi:10.1038/262766a0;
Structure of the extended solar magnetic field and the sunspot cycle variation in cosmic ray intensity
LEIF SVALGAARD & JOHN M. WILCOX
Abstract
The interplanetary magnetic field within several astronomical units of the Sun appears to have one polarity in most of the hemisphere north of the solar equatorial plane and the opposite polarity in most of the hemisphere south of the equatorial plane1–7. The two hemispheres are separated by a curved current sheet that typically crosses the solar equatorial plane in either two or four places, thus dividing the equatorial region into either two or four sectors. Near sunspot minimum, at 1 AU the curved current sheet has a spread in latitude of typically 15°, so that the sector boundary (the current sheet separating the two hemispheres of opposed field polarity) is almost parallel to the solar equatorial plane. In the photosphere, on the other hand, the sector boundary makes an angle of 90° with the equatorial plane8. At 1.5 R, in 1972 and 1973, the angle between the sector boundary and the equatorial plane was 45° (ref. 9), and at 3–10 R the angle between boundary and plane was 25° (ref. 10). A schematic diagram of this structure for the case of four sectors is shown in Fig. 1. We here propose that a connection exists between the extent of these magnetic fields and the observed variations in cosmic ray intensity at the Earth.
—-
Figure 1 from that paper was ‘beautified’ by artist Werner Heil at Ames Research Center and is the well-known: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heliospheric-current-sheet_edit.jpg image, I’m sure you have seen. It is on wiki.
solrey (19:31:40) :
And one more time: You can learn more about the HCS here
http://www.leif.org/EOS/JA091iA12p13679.pdf
On page 3 you’ll find:
“This type of current sheet was conceptually illustrated first by Svalgaard and Wilcox [1976]”.
I hope I have done enough ‘splaining’ and that you would do your homework better in the future.
Leif Svalgaard,
It is wonderful how consensus can make one so sure of themselves.
” And there is no neutrino problem. The Sun puts out precisely what theory predicts. With detectors that were only sensitive to electron neutrinos we only saw 1/3 the neutrinos expected. With modern detectors we see all three types and the flux is just as expected. The resolution of the ‘problem’ is that neutrinos change their ‘flavor’ [of which there are there – hence the 1/3] in flight. There is no problem.”
You told us that there were experiments which “proved” neutrinos could change flavor. I looked up those experiments. Let’s just say low probability at best, wishful thinking or confirmation bias at worst. But, very expensive!!
The other issue is the claim that neutrinos of 3 flavors and the right amount are measured at the earth to satisfy theory.
There is a problem there. You, and I, do not KNOW what is actually leaving the sun because it has not been measured. Hopefully one of these expensive space missions will get close enough to settle that little issue. The detector should be quite innovative when they design it.
Color me still sceptical.